


all day permanent RED

by shipwrecks



Series: About loving, and then letting go [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Violence, Character Study, Experimental Style, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, M/M, Ships if u squint, darth vader is a complicated bad murder man, taking the pew pew movies too seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23162059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipwrecks/pseuds/shipwrecks
Summary: It would have been easier, he used to think, if he'd lost it all. Been reborn entirely machine, no crude flesh or even the briefest flashes of something human, still there, deep beneath the strata of time and choices.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: About loving, and then letting go [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664965
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	all day permanent RED

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArdenSkyeHolmes221](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdenSkyeHolmes221/gifts), [intermundia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intermundia/gifts).



> me @ anakin skywalker, now that i've written over 10k about him n his issues: begone thot!!! but like i was NOT gonna write about my original space fav darth daddy!! this is uhhhhhh experimental n probably not for everyone but fanfiction is free so i will never write anything except for exactly what i want always (and then wonder why my weird shit languishes in obscurity lmao) title is from christopher logue's homer interpretation _war music_ because of course it is
> 
> this one's for @ArdenSkyeHolmes221 and @intermundia cause they stumbled upon my meager offerings and the classical tradition resonated with them enough to go nuts with me in the comments ♥ i promise, nothing you say will be weirder than my reply. ao3 is my last bastion of anonymity and that is never more apparent than when i'm responding to compliments

  


_Who then will dare to say I'm weak or timid?  
No, they'll say I'm loyal as a friend, ruthless as a foe,  
so much like a hero destined for glory_

—EURIPIDES, medea 

  


_you burn me_

Sappho, 38 

  


  


(a long time ago— 

there are fragrant flowers nestled deep under the soft skin of a woman hard as steel—an angel the way she sees the best in everyone and demands them all to be as good as she knows they can be. she breathes and the very air laughs with the scent. 

there is clean soap and the sweat of exertion, the sizzle and power of a blade made of light. a silver tongue and a heart of gold. enigmatic teacher and loyal brother, trying to keep everyone at a distance—but those he loves are no less under worn, tired skin. 

and then there is gathered stardust, lightning temper, a soul on fire. pulling those in your orbit ever closer—even if it hurts, even if they burn.) 

  


  


_it seems in your anger you killed her_

There is a wail of anguish, that releases static and toneless. One last human sound poured out inhuman. 

Twisted and damaged, a trail of carnage in his wake. And all that it was for, he'd lost anyway. He takes a deep breath, like creeping fog in the distance, like the monster lurking within it unseen. He is not a man anymore, brimming with emotions, deeply and truly for all their faults. He will no longer search for feelings, he will trust only the weapon in his hand and the submission it yields. 

He kills Anakin Skywalker too. Lord Vader rises in his place. 

  


  


_RED_

He sees red behind his eyelids, the same red that shines out of the hilt of his new lightsaber, the same red that licked up his limbs and charred his flesh dead, the same red that he carries inside him to take hold of the Force, the same red the same red the same red. 

He opens his eyes. Reality seeps back in and it too is red, bloody slaughter wherever he goes. 

  


  


(in a galaxy dark and desolate— 

time wears on until you aren't who you used to be. you never were. no one remembers, not even you. everyone who could is dead, cut down by your hand—they cannot remind you.) 

  


  


_don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed_

He speaks evenly, in the distant robotic voice he's learned to recognize as his own. He feels the whirs of mechanization that keep what little body he has left alive. It would have been easier, he used to think, if he'd lost it all. Been reborn entirely machine, no crude flesh or even the briefest flashes of something human, still there, deep beneath the strata of time and choices. 

He reaches out through the Force, clutches the phantom windpipe in his grip and crushes, rouses a particular fear at his indifference to pain. Cruelty is certainly not beyond man's dominion, but it is the lack of even rage, any emotion at all, that makes him seem like something else. Makes him now believe it too. Cold as the vacuum of space, and just as unforgiving. 

  


  


_if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine_

Something unleashes, something he has not felt in what seems like ages. A molten anger flows through him, boiling and _RED_ —the old fool dares to say that _he_ will become more powerful, when he has spent the last years of his life in cowardice hiding. Too afraid to face him, his former student, who now holds the galaxy like a weak, disobedient throat. 

No. It is time to finish what began so long ago, when he was forged in the fire and took his first steps. 

There is no sear of saber meeting skin, only a strange whisper and then he is gone, leaving nothing but threadbare robes. His rage clots like coagulated blood, hardens into dark basalt. 

  


  


_no—I am your father_

He feels Luke, his _anger_ , his hurt. The way he does not want to believe it, the way he already knows it's true. But then he cannot feel him at all, the boy letting himself fall in defiance. 

His dreams linger upon this moment. The boy will grow more powerful than you and he will destroy you, they say. He will not ever join you and you will have to kill him, they say. You will persuade him and then he will truly be your son, they say. 

The bacta tank is suffocating and the last place that offered sleep now haunts him. 

  


  


_you've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi—like my father before me_

Luke screams out for him, a son screams out for his father. 

Anger surges through him—no, this is something else. As hot as the fury but it grows from different soil, blooms _RED_ like shared blood, like twin suns from a place he once called home, like the frail heart still inside the machine, with only the strength for this last climb out of the rocky ground of him. Like, like— _Oh._ Love. 

Once forbidden, once mangled out of him by suspicion and promises and his own terrible brutality. He has done so many awful things, but he could choose differently. It has always been his choice. He makes a final one. 

He looks upon his son, with his own eyes, just one time. It is enough, perhaps still more than he deserves. The Force pulses so strongly in Luke, all the wondrous and complicated ways to be alive. He will leave behind death and ruin, but there's this too. There was a time he was not cold. There was a time he loved. And in his dying breath, Anakin Skywalker loved again. 

  


  


  


_Come back!  
Even as a shadow, even as a dream._

– euripides, herakles 

  


this is not an epilogue. a tidy lesson to be gained from your life. you are not finished yet. 

(your son will make sure of that. he will demand more of you, more still when he learns of all that you did. your daughter will make sure of that. she will not even acknowledge you, will tell her brother he is wasting his time. you need to atone for your sins, and there are so very many.) 

you take shape like translucent silk. you see an old fool, who looks like he's been waiting for you. you stand next to him, as you once did, as friend, as brother, as jedi. he gave you the very best of himself, and now you have time everlasting to finally show yourself worthy. 

two suns drop below the horizon _RED_ , like shared blood, like the heart against all understanding you somehow feel beating inside you, no longer like pain—like the love that springs from it, that wraps around it, soothes it like a balm. 

  


**Author's Note:**

> and to you, if you have been with me to the very end (i see familiar usernames in the kudos! bless y'all!!) here is my [writing playlist that is also my overwrought classics take on anakin/obi-wan](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2o9j2qCtzX3nxzhmrov12WOHrLlv2XML)


End file.
